A good measure of spoken English is saying one’s tag questions correctly

Some people become very proficient in their written English, even to the point of winning major literary or journalistic awards for their well-crafted competition pieces. But such proficiency in writing unfortunately doesn’t always translate into a corresponding proficiency in spoken English. Not infrequently, in fact, we see and hear highly accomplished writers fumbling with their English or even totally at a loss for words when they socialize with strangers or when they need to formally address an audience of more than just a few people. Clearly, so many factors other than just excellent grammar and wide vocabulary are at work to cause such disparity in the quality of one’s written and spoken English,  but from a practical standpoint, I think one very crucial ingredient of excellent spoken English is mastery of saying the tag questions right.

In the two-part essay below that I wrote for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in 2004, I show how the purposive use of grammatically correct tag questions can make people better and more effective conversationalists, able to confidently and gracefully connect with other people and seamlessly elicit desired responses from them. Internalizing the various kinds of tag questions will take some doing, of course, but by memorizing the rules for making them and by assiduously practicing their use, it shouldn’t take very long for one to become a much better if not a sparkling English speaker. (October 24, 2011) 

Saying our tag questions right

Part 1:

A good indicator of one’s English proficiency is the ability to use tag questions properly. But wait—we all know what “tag questions” are, don’t we all? Well, if some of us don’t or have already forgotten, the mini-question “don’t we all?” in the preceding sentence is what’s called a “tag question.” Some grammarians prefer to call it a “question tag,” and the whole statement inclusive of that mini-question the “tag question.”

For our purposes, however, we will refer to the mini-question as the tag question itself, or “tag” for short; we will not quibble over the terminology. The important thing is for us to fully appreciate and understand how native English speakers purposively use tag questions to get a quick confirmation or reaction from their listeners. With that, we should be able to form English tag questions ourselves with greater confidence, using them flawlessly to emphasize our thoughts and ideas and to elicit the desired response from our listeners.

Most of us will probably recall that tag questions generally follow a definite pattern: a positive statement is followed by a negative tag question, and a negative statement is followed by a positive tag question. Since tags are meant to be spoken, of course, it’s normal to use contractions of the negative forms of verbs either in the tag question or in the main statement itself.

Here’s a quick drill to jog our rusty memories about the grammar of tags. From the positive standpoint: “She is, isn’t she?” “They do, don’t they?” “We can, can’t we?” “You are Filipino, aren’t you?” And from the negative standpoint: “She doesn’t, does she?” “They don’t, do they?” “We can’t, can we?” “You aren’t Filipino, are you?”

We can see that the tag questions above are all of opposite polarity to that of the main statement. Also, we must keep in mind that without exception, the verb in a tag question always has the same tense as the verb in the main statement. (In speech, we must note here, there should always be a brief pause between the main statement and the tag question; in writing, this brief pause must always be indicated by a comma between the main statement and the tag question.)

Some of us will probably also recall that there are actually three ways of forming tag questions depending on the kind of verb used in the main statement.

First, if that verb is a form of the auxiliary verb “be,” the same form of that verb must be used in the tag question: “He is from Manila, isn’t he?” “We aren’t that bad, are we?” “They were of foreign origin, weren’t they?”

Second, if a main statement uses a modal such as “can,” “could,” or “should,” the same modal must be used in tag question: “She can dance, can’t she?” “They couldn’t do that, could they?” “We shouldn’t interfere in their affairs, should we?”

And third, if the main statement uses an active verb (instead of only an auxiliary verb), the appropriate form of the auxiliary verb “do” takes the place of that active verb in the tag question: “She loves you, doesn’t she?” “You take me for granted, don’t you?” “They played the part, didn’t they?” 

We will recall, too, that when a main statement has a proper name as subject, the tag question must use its pronoun instead: “Jennifer is doing well in Singapore, isn’t she?” “Manila isn’t the tourist capital in Asia these days, is it?” “Some Australians eat kangaroo meat, don’t they?” “Nestle is the biggest food company in the world, isn’t it?”

We must be aware, however, that some special cases of English-language tag questions don’t strictly follow the norms that we have just discussed. Here are two such tags that seemingly look and sound askew: “Let’s go out, shall we?” “Let’s not go out, shall we?”

Are those tags proper or not? Yes, they are. Even if those tags often raise the hackles of grammar purists, native English speakers accept and use both of them. The strictly grammatical to say “Let’s go out, shall we?” is, of course, “We’ll go out, shan’t we?”, but it sounds stiff and unnatural. Here are two natural-sounding alternatives that should sit in well among Filipinos: “Let’s go out, all right?” “Let’s go out, okay?”

Another notable special case involving tags is the whole range of statements that use “nothing,” “nobody,” and “no one” as their subject. In such cases, the statements should be considered of negative polarity, and their tag questions should be given a positive polarity: “Nothing came in the mail, was there?” “Nobody bothered you last night, was there?” “No one wants this, is there?”

We will take up other special cases and other fine aspects of tag questions in the next essay. (May 24, 2004)

Part 2:

We will continue our discussion of some notable departures from the usual positive-negative and negative-positive rule for forming tags, or those mini-questions purposively added by speakers at the end of their statements to get a quick confirmation or denial from their listeners. That general rule, we recalled, is that a positive statement should be followed by a negative tag, and a negative statement should be followed by a positive tag: “She’s winning, isn’t she?” “They’re not conceding, are they?” “We’ll not get into trouble for this, would we?”

Now, here are a few more tags that don’t scrupulously follow that polarity rule: “I’m correct, aren’t I?” (Not “I’m correct, amn’t I?” The awkward tag “amn’t I” is “am I not?” in contracted form, which is unacceptable grammar). “She’d better take it, hadn’t she?” (Not “She’d better take it, wouldn’t she?” The tag “hadn’t she?” is actually “had she better not?” in contracted form. That tag is the logical polar negative of the full statement “She had better take it,” where the operative verb form is “had better,” not “take.”). “This will do, won’t it?” (Not “This will do, willen’t it?”—which uses a tag that doesn’t exist in English. Conversely, the reverse-polarity statement will be “This won’t do, will it?”) 

Another exception about tags that bewilders many nonnative English speakers is this: the opposite polarity rule can actually be pointedly ignored when people want to strongly express sarcasm, disbelief, surprise, concern, shock, or anger. Take the following examples: “You think you’re indispensable, do you?” “Oh, you will really do that, will you?” “Oh, she really left him, did she?” “So you’re finally getting married, are you? That’s great!” (Or the contrary sentiment: “So she’s finally getting married, is she? The nerve!”) “And you think that’s amusing, do you?”

And then, as a mark of politeness, positive tags can also be routinely attached to positive requests: “Come here, will you?” “Do that, will you?” “Please hand me that screw driver, will you?”

When people use negative statements with negative tag questions, on the other hand, it is not necessarily bad grammar but a sure sign of the breakdown of civility or of downright hostility and combativeness: “So you don’t love me at all, don’t you?” “You really didn’t like the idea, didn’t you?” “So you don’t think my school is good enough, don’t you?” “So you didn’t want peace after all, didn’t you?” The negative tags emphasize the negativeness of the main statement to deliberately rile people or to make them feel guilty. They give vent to feelings of meanness.

Now, from experience, we all know that using negative statements with positive tag questions in the standard manner is the polite, socially acceptable way of asking for information or help. Such statements are particularly useful if we don’t know the people being addressed.

It is rude, for instance, to simply approach or accost on the mall someone we don’t know and ask, pointblank, “Where’s the women’s room?” The civilized way, of course, is to restate that question to the needed degree of politeness, depending on who is being addressed.

Here’s that same question said a little bit more politely, addressed to people of about the same age or social station as the speaker: “Do you know where the women’s room is?” (A tag question is not used in such cases.)

Now here it is in a polite, nonaggressive form, this time addressed to people older or of a higher social station than us: “You wouldn’t know where the women’s room is, would you?” (This time, the question form “Do you know...?” and the tag question that follows make the statement sufficiently deferential.)

Here are a few more patterns of negative statements with positive tag questions, the use of which should make us more pleasant, convivial people to deal with: “You don’t know of any job openings in your company at this time, do you?” “You don’t happen to know where the stock exchange building is, do you?” “You wouldn’t be willing to lose all that money in gambling, would you?” “You haven’t got anything to do with what happened, do you?” “You can’t spare me a thousand for my son’s tuition, can you?” “You can’t believe it that the woman’s leading the race, can you?”

The beauty of negative statements with positive tag questions is that they subtly prime up the listener’s mind either to accept the given idea or to decline it quickly and gracefully; in fact, refusing to answer the positive tag questions at all actually will make the person being addressed look rude and impolite. In this classic communication gambit of appealing to the other’s goodness of heart and of cushioning a possible blow to one’s self-esteem before that blow is even inflicted, nobody should lose face whatever the answer might be. (May 31, 2004)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, May 24 and 31, 2004 © 2004 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Choosing between “like” and “such as” when comparing or giving examples

Some grammar elements with similar or overlapping functions just seem to remain slippery no matter how hard we try to get a good grip of them. This is obviously the case with “like” and “such as.” Although we learn early enough that “like” is for saying that something resembles something else, and that “such as” is for giving a specific example of something, the distinction between them often gets so thin and fuzzy in actual usage that we tend to mistake one for the other.

To clarify the usage of “such as” and “like,” I wrote the essay below for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in September of 2005. I am now posting it here to give English learners a much better handle in dealing with this nasty pair of grammar trippers. (October 16, 2011)

Two slippery grammar trippers in English

Surely one of the most slippery grammar trippers we’ll encounter in English is choosing between “like” and “such as” to form comparative statements or give examples. Which of them, for instance, is correctly used in the following two sentences?

(1) “Exemption from flight pre-boarding procedures like a thorough body search is usually granted to diplomats.”

(2) “Exemption from flight pre-boarding procedures such as a thorough body search is usually granted to diplomats.”

If you still haven’t figured out the correct usage, you may take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone in the predicament. The use of “like” and “such as” is actually considered correct in both sentences, but the choice between them has remained debatable all these years. We therefore need to carefully study both sides of the debate so we can put ourselves on more solid semantic footing regarding the usage.

Some grammarians insist that “such as,” which means “for example,” is the only correct usage in such constructions: “Exemption from flight pre-boarding procedures such as a thorough body search is usually granted to diplomats.” They maintain that “like” should never be used as a substitute for “such as,” arguing that “like” doesn’t convey the idea of giving an example at all. Instead, they say, “like” in this usage can only imply similarity, resemblance, or comparison, as in “Her pillow lips look like Angelina Jolie’s.”

Other grammarians are not as restrictive in their prescription for using “like” and “such as,” but they do recommend the following more precise usage for them:

(1) Use “such as” to introduce one or more examples that represent a larger subject, as in “Eduardo has a collection of vintage cars such as the 1955 BMW 507 and the 1915 Vauxhall”; and

(2) Use “like” to convey the idea that two subjects are comparable, as in “Alberto wants to be a vintage car collector like Ramon.”

Take note, though, that those same grammarians consider “like” to be a close semantic equivalent of “such as.” They are therefore not averse to substituting “like” for “such as” in the sentence given in Item 1: “Eduardo has a collection of vintage cars like the 1955 BMW 507 and the 1915 Vauxhall.”

On the other hand, they would find it unthinkable for anyone to substitute “such as” for “like” in the sentence given in Item 2 above. To them, the resulting sentence is unacceptable because it isn’t natural sounding or idiomatic: “Eduardo wants to be a vintage car collector such as Ramon.”

At any rate, “like” in modern spoken English has practically taken over the role of “such as” in comparative statements. The forms “such as” and “such...as” are now largely confined to formal writing. “Like,” in contrast, is now the preferred form for informal usage in which the example being given is offered not simply as an example but as the topic of the sentence itself, as in this case: "We are delighted to have a generous benefactor like Bill Gates." Using “such as” instead of “like” in such sentences must be firmly avoided, for it gives the sentence a false ring: “We are delighted to have a generous benefactor such as Bill Gates.”

In formal writing, we are well advised to distinguish carefully between “like” comparisons and “such as” comparisons. In a “like” comparison, only one person or object from the class is usually named, and that person or object is understood to be excluded from the group being discussed.

Take this example: “If you are a student taught by a brilliant mathematics teacher like Prof. Alberto Reyes, you would learn differential calculus in no time at all.” This comparison is about the possibility of students being taught by mathematics teachers whose brilliance is comparable to Prof. Alberto Reyes’s, with Prof. Reyes himself specifically excluded from the comparison.

On the other hand, in a “such as” or “such...as” comparison, one or several persons or objects can be named in the comparison, and all of those persons or objects are understood to be included in the group being discussed.

Take these two sentences:

“With highly capable mathematics professors such as Prof. Alberto Reyes and Prof. Eduardo Cariño handling the differential calculus classes, we can expect a much higher percentage of passing among the students.”

“With such highly capable mathematics professors as Prof. Alberto Reyes and Prof. Eduardo Cariño handling the differential calculus classes, we can expect a much high percentage of passing among the students.”

In both sentences, the comparison this time is about brilliant mathematics teachers as a class whose members include both Prof. Reyes and Prof. Cariño.

Now that we know how to clearly distinguish the semantic difference between “like” and “such as,” we should be able to use them from now on without fear of tripping in our grammar. (September 26, 2005)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, September 26, 2005 © 2005 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Using parallelism to achieve structural balance in writing

Last week, I posted here Parts I and II of “Presenting ideas in parallel,” a four-part essay that I wrote for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in 2006 to create greater awareness of the importance of parallelism in writing. Part I took up this basic rule for parallel construction: never mix grammatical forms when presenting similar or related ideas, meaning that all of those ideas should stick to the same grammatical pattern all throughout—all noun forms, all gerund forms, all infinitive forms, or all verb forms as the case may be. Then Part II discussed another very important parallel construction rule: a parallel structure that begins with a clause should sustain that pattern all the way.

This week, I am posting Parts III and IV of that essay. Part III discusses specific applications of the two parallelism rules taken up in Parts I and II, while Part IV discusses how to achieve structural balance for sentences by using parallel structure for adjectives and adverbs as well as for two or more grammatical elements serving as complements.

I am sure that by following the prescriptions for parallelism taken up in the four-part essay, you will see a dramatic improvement in both your written and spoken English. (October 9, 2011)

Presenting ideas in parallel

Part III:

We have already taken up the two basic rules for parallel construction, namely that a sentence that presents two or more serial elements should stick to the same pattern all throughout, and that a parallel structure that begins with a clause should sustain that pattern all the way. We saw that we can build much clearer and more forceful sentences by consistently observing these rules.

Now we need to refami­liarize ourselves with four specific applications of these two parallelism rules: (1) that all of the elements being enumerated in a list should take the same grammatical form, (2) that elements being compared should take the same grammatical form, (3) that elements joined by a linking verb or a verb of being should take the same grammatical form, and (4) that elements joined by a correlative conjunction should take the same grammatical form.

All elements in a list should have a parallel structure. We can make our written compositions better organized and more readable by using the same grammatical form for all the elements we are enumerating in a list. The elements should all be noun forms, verb forms, infinitive phrases, gerund phrases, or participial phrases, whichever is most appropriate. When we allow any of the elements to take a different form, the rhythm of the enumeration is broken and the reader’s train of thought is needlessly disrupted.

Consider the following not-so-well-thought-out list:

“At present, our club has: (1) no formal charter, (2) subsisting without a long-term organizational goal, (3) a seriously declining membership, (4) a large budgetary deficit, and (5) to collect a large amount of past-due membership fees.”

The list looks awfully craggy and reads very badly for an obvious reason: its elements don’t follow a consistent grammatical form. Items 1, 3, and 4 are noun phrases, but Item 2 is a verb phrase in the progressive form and Item 5 is an infinitive phrase. 

Now see how smoothly and cohesively the list reads when its elements all take the same grammatical form, in this case as verb phrases:

“At present, our club: (1) lacks a formal charter, (2) subsists without a long-term organizational goal, (3) suffers from a seriously declining membership, (4) carries a large budgetary deficit, and (5) needs to collect a large amount of past-due membership fees.”

Elements being compared should use a parallel structure. In constructions that use the form “X is better than/more than Y,” we have to make sure that the elements being compared have the same grammatical structure. Unparallel (gerund/infinitive): “She enjoys jogging better than to run.” Parallel (gerund/gerund): “She enjoys jogging better than running.”

Elements joined by a linking verb or a verb of being should use a parallel structure. When we use “is” as a verb of being that links two elements, we have to make sure that the elements have the same grammatical structure. Unpa­rallel (infinitive/gerund): “To make that impossible demand is declaring open hostilities.” Parallel (infinitive/infinitive): “To make that impossible demand is to declare open hostilities.” 

Elements joined by a correlative conjunction should use a parallel structure. When we use the correlative conjunctions “either . . .  or,” “neither . . . nor,” “not only . . . but also,” “both . . . and . . .”, and “whether . . . or,” we have to make sure that the elements being correlated have the same grammatical structure.

Unparallel (gerund/infinitive): “For you to get to Manila on time, we suggest either taking the morning flight tomorrow or to drive overnight right now.” Parallel (gerund/gerund): “For you to get to Manila on time, we suggest either taking the morning flight tomorrow or driving overnight right now.”

Unparallel: “They not only demand very short installment periods but also huge down payments.” Parallel: “They demand not only very short installment periods but also huge down payments.” Also parallel: “They not only demand very short installment periods but also demand huge down payments.”

We will take up some more fine points about parallelism in Part IV of this essay. (June 12, 2006)

Part IV:

We saw in the first three parts of this essay that the consistent use of parallel structures is the key to more readable, more forceful, and more polished sentences. We also learned that for clearer and more cohesive sentences, we should always use parallel structures when presenting various elements in a list, when comparing elements, when joining elements with a linking verb or a verb or being, and when joining elements with correlative conjunctions.

Before winding up our discussions on parallel construction, we will take up two more techniques for harnessing parallelism to give structural balance and better rhythm to our sentences. We will discover that these techniques can dramatically improve our writing and give it a distinctive sense of style.

Use parallel structure for adjectives and adverbs. We should also aim for parallel patterns when using adjectives and adverbs in our sentences, seeking structural balance for them in much the same way as we do for noun forms, verb forms, infinitives, and gerunds.

Unparallel construction: “She danced gracefully, with confidence and as if exerting no effort at all.” Here, we have a stilted sentence because the modifiers of the verb “danced” have taken different grammatical forms: “gracefully” (adverb), “with confidence” (adjective introduced by a preposition), and “as if exerting no effort at all” (adverbial phrase).

Parallel construction: “She danced gracefully, confidently, effortlessly.” The consistent adverb/adverb/adverb pattern gives the sentence a strong sense of unity and drama.

Unparallel construction: “The gang attempted an audacious bank robbery that was marked by lightning speed and done in a commando manner.” The sentence reads badly because the three modifiers of “bank robbery” are grammatically different: “audacious” (adjective), “marked by lightning speed” (participial phrase), and “done in a commando manner” (another participial phrase).

Parallel construction: “The gang attempted an audacious, lightning-swift, commando-type bank robbery.” The sentence reads much more forcefully because of its consistent adjective-adjective-adjective pattern for all of the modifiers of “bank robbery.”

Use parallel structure for several elements serving as complements of a sentence. For more cohesive and forceful sentences, we should always look for a suitable common pattern for their complements. Recall that a complement is an added word or expression that completes the predicate of a sentence. For instance, in the sentence “They included Albert in their soccer lineup,” the phrase “in their soccer lineup” is the complement.

Unparallel construction: “We basked in the kindness of our gracious hosts, walking leisurely in the benign morning sunshine, and the palm trees would rustle pleasantly when we napped in the lazy afternoons.” Here, we have a confusing construction because the three elements serving as complements don’t have a common grammatical pattern: “the kindness of our hosts” (noun phrase), “walking leisurely in the benign morning sunshine” (progressive verb form), and “the palm trees would rustle pleasantly when we napped in the lazy afternoons” (clause).

Parallel construction: “We basked in the kindness of our gracious hosts, in the benign sunshine during our early morning walks, and in the pleasant rustle of the palm trees when we napped in the lazy afternoons.” The sentence reads much, much better this time because the three complements are now all noun phrases in parallel—“in the kindness of our gracious hosts,” “in the benign morning sunshine during our early morning walks,” and “in the pleasant rustle of the palm trees when we napped in the lazy afternoons.” Note that all three have been made to work as adverbial phrase modifiers of the verb “basked.”

In actual writing, of course, the need to use parallel structures in our sentences will not always be apparent at first. As we develop our compositions, however, we should always look for opportunities for parallel construction, choose the most suitable grammatical pattern for them, then pursue that pattern consistently. Together with good grammar, this is actually the great secret to good writing that many of us have been looking for all along. (June 19, 2011)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, June 12 and 19, 2006 © 2006 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Good writing needs scrupulously parallel organization of ideas

In My Media English Watch on Jose Carillo’s English Forum last September 18, I called attention to the remarkably unparallel structure of this lead paragraph from a recent newspaper story: “They started with highly paid doctors and lawyers but even taxi drivers and small business owners will not be spared. And the consumption patterns of upward striving politicians make particularly delicious targets.” As I pointed out in my grammar critique (“The need for parallelism and voice consistency when writing the news”), these two sentences flagrantly violate the parallelism rule three times over. They are a highly instructive example of the fact that in English, good writing isn’t just a matter of error-free grammar and usage but of scrupulously parallel organization and presentation of ideas.

To foster greater awareness and appreciation of the importance of parallelism in writing, I wrote a four-part essay, “Presenting ideas in parallel,” for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in 2006. I am now posting here all four parts of that essay in full—Parts I and II this week, and Parts III and IV next week. (October 3, 2011)  

Presenting ideas in parallel

Part I:

Parallel construction is one of our most powerful tools for organizing and presenting ideas. It cannot be overemphasized that making our sentences grammatically and semantically correct is simply not enough. We should also ensure that each of their grammatical structures that are alike in function follows the same pattern. In fact, observance of this basic stylistic rule very often spells the difference between good and bad writing.

To give us a better idea of the power of parallel construction, let us first examine the following simple sentence: “Alberto likes reading, jogging, and to play computer games.”

We will find that it’s structurally disjointed and doesn’t read well because not all of its serial elements follow the same pattern. Although the first two elements, “reading” and “jogging,” are in parallel because both are gerunds (“-ing” noun forms), the third, “to play computer games,” ruins the parallelism because it is in the infinitive form (“to” + the verb stem).

One quick way to fix this structural problem is to put the third element also in gerund form, “playing computer games,” so that the sentence reads as follows: “Alberto likes reading, jogging, and playing computer games.” It is now grammatical balanced and no longer sounds stilted.

Another way for the original sentence to achieve parallelism is to make all three of its serial elements take the infinitive form: “Alberto likes to read, to jog, and to play computer games.” This sentence, of course, can be streamlined even further by using “to” only once right before the first of the all-infinitive parallel elements: “Alberto likes to read, jog, and play computer games.”

In actual practice, we have to put in parallel not only single words or short phrases but much more complicated grammatical structures such as extended phrases and clauses as well as long serial lists. However, the basic rule for parallel construction remains the same: never mix grammatical forms. We have to choose the most appropriate form for the similar or related ideas, then stick to the same pattern all the way.

Consider the following sentence with three extended elements that are not all in parallel: “The chief executive decided to terminate the advertising manager because he rarely managed to come up with the company’s TV commercials on time, approved the publication of several major print advertising with serious grammar errors, and his relations with both his staff and the advertising agencies were very bad.”

The first subordinate clause, “he rarely managed to come up with the company’s TV commercials on time,” is in parallel with the second subordinate clause, “[he] approved the publication of several major print advertising with serious grammar errors,” because both are active verb forms using “he” (the advertising manager) as the subject. However, the third subordinate clause, “his human relations with both his staff and the advertising agencies were very poor,” disrupts the parallelism because it takes the passive verb form and takes for its subject not “he” but another noun form, “his relations with both his staff and the advertising agencies.”

See how much better the sentence reads when the third element is modified so it becomes parallel with the first two: “The chief executive decided to terminate the advertising manager because he rarely managed to come up with the company’s TV commercials on time, allowed the publication of several major print advertising with serious grammar errors, and related very badly with both his staff and the advertising agencies.”

Note that the three elements are now all active-voice verb phrases, thus perfectly parallel in form.

We will go deeper into the various ways of achieving parallelism in the next essay. (May 29, 2006)

Part II:

As emphasized in Part I of this essay, the basic rule for parallel construction is to never mix grammatical forms when presenting similar or related ideas. A sentence that presents two or more serial elements should stick to the same pattern all throughout—all noun forms, all gerund forms, all infinitive forms, or all verb forms as the case may be. When serial elements all take the same form, ideas come across much more clearly and cohesively.

We will discuss another very important parallel construction rule this time: A parallel structure that begins with a clause should sustain that pattern all the way. Recall now that a clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate (and can thus function as a sentence in its own right, as in “we should obey the law”), as opposed to a phrase, which is a group of words that doesn’t have them (and thus can’t function as a sentence by itself, as in “to obey the law” or “obeying the law”). When the sentence doesn’t sustain the clause pattern, or when any of the clauses shifts from the active to the passive voice or the other way around, the parallelism falls apart. The result is a disjointed sentence that doesn’t read well.

Take this sentence that contains three serial grammatical elements: “The English professor told the students that they should aim for perfect attendance, that they should always do their assigned homework, and to submit their term papers on time.” The parallelism of this sentence breaks down because while the first two elements—“they should aim for perfect attendance” and “they should always do their assigned homework”—are both clauses, the third element—“to submit their term papers on time”—is not a clause but an infinitive phrase.

We need to make this third element also a clause—“they should submit their term papers on time”—so the sentence can become perfectly parallel and more readable: “The English professor told the students that they should aim for perfect attendance, that they should do their assigned homework regularly, and that they should submit their term papers on time.” Of course, a more concise but less emphatic way to construct this serial-clause sentence is to use the imperative “that they should” only once before the first clause: “The English professor told the students that they should aim for perfect attendance, do their assigned homework regularly, and submit their term papers on time.” (Be forewarned, though, that such streamlining can obscure the meaning in more complicated constructions.)

The parallel structure of a sentence with serial clauses can also be ruined when any of the clauses takes a different voice, say the passive from active: “The president anticipated that majority of the lower house would welcome the planned Charter change, that most of the senators would fiercely oppose it, and that a vicious demolition job would be mounted against it by her political detractors.” Here, the first two clauses—“majority of the lower house would welcome the planned charter change” and “most of the senators would fiercely oppose it”—are in the active voice, but the third clause—“a vicious demolition job would be mounted against it by her political detractors”—is in the passive voice, thus disrupting the pattern.

To make the construction parallel all throughout, we should make the third clause also take the active voice—“her political detractors would mount a vicious demolition job against it.” This results in a more forceful sentence: “The president anticipated that majority of the lower house would welcome the planned charter change, that most of the senators would fiercely oppose it, and that her political detractors would mount a vicious demolition job against it.” (June 5, 2006)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, May 29 and June 5, 2006 © 2010 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Next week, Part III and Part IV will take up more ways of using parallelism to enhance the clarity and readability of our writing.